2016

Julian Assange's arbitrary detention must end at once, UN panel finds.
Sweden must drop immediately the fake case against the founder of Wikileaks.

WikiLeaks chief, who has been holed up since 2012 in the Ecuadorian embassy, has won UN backing.
A United Nations panel has decided that Julian Assange’s three-and-a-half years in the Ecuadorian embassy amount to “arbitrary detention”, leading his lawyers to call for the Swedish extradition request to be dropped immediately.
A Swedish foreign ministry spokeswoman confirmed that the UN panel, due to publish its findings on Friday, had concluded that Assange was “arbitrarily detained”.
The WikiLeaks founder sought asylum from Ecuador in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning over rape and sexual assault allegations, which he denies.
The panel’s findings were disclosed to the Swedish and British governments on 22 January, and will be published on Friday morning. Their judgment is not legally binding but can be used to apply pressure on states in human rights cases.

Also read:Find in Wikileaks how Henry Kissinger, when he was US Secretary of State, ruined the author of a 'Pure Theory of Democracy' and thus the chance of Spain having a true representative Democracy ... [+]

2015

Where ministers stand on EU referendum?
About half of David Cameron’s cabinet probably have Eurosceptic tendencies – here the Guardian offers its best guesses of their positions at the moment

Some cabinet ministers have a lot of thinking to do over the Christmas break about how they will campaign in the European Union referendum, which could come as early as this summer after renegotiations conclude in February.
Their final decisions will depend on whether David Cameron forces them to back his campaign to remain in the EU, their chances of promotion if they stay loyal to No 10, how the opinion polls are looking and whether they could have a chance of leading the out campaign.

British student fights extradition to US for allegedly hacking the FBI and Nasa
US says Anonymous hacker Lauri Love ‘secretly infiltrated’ computer systems and faces 12 years in prison, more than others charged in the UK

On any given sunny day during this past summer, Lauri Love could be found playing music in Abbey Gardens in Bury St Edmunds, inside the ruins of an 11th century abbey. He’d strap a sound system to a bike, and sometimes add lasers and instruments. “Like busking, but without the money,” he said of his pastime.
As he played, he knew these might be his last days outside enjoying the warm sunshine for some time. Love, a 30-year-old engineering student from Suffolk with a history of mental health issues, is wanted for extradition by the United States under the notorious US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).
The FBI has stated that he could face 12 years in prison if convicted, though there are relatively few precedents for hacking convictions; the most recent conviction under the act was of former Reuters journalist Matthew Keys, who could face 25 years in prison on lesser charges than Love faces.

2014

The Conservative leadership has been accused of making a second blunder over the European arrest warrant, after peers protested at the “inappropriate manner” in which the government is seeking to readopt the power through the Lords as well as the Commons.
After MPs reacted with fury about being denied a vote on the warrant, the government proceeded to table an identical motion in the House of Lords for debate on Monday that also omitted any mention of the EAW.
Ministers subsequently tabled an amended motion, but only to say that a vote on 11 European justice and home affairs powers should be taken as referring to a wider package of 35 measures that includes the European arrest warrant.

Cameron and May savaged for broken promises over European arrest warrant
Government narrowly wins impromptu vote called by Labour after Speaker calls Tory U-turn on motion ‘a sorry saga’

The Conservative leadership has been savaged by its own MPs and the Commons Speaker for denying parliament a vote on whether to rejoin the European arrest warrant.
There were chaotic and angry scenes in the house after MPs turned up expecting a vote on the warrant but found the government motion only mentioned 11 other EU justice and home affairs powers.
The arrest warrant is supported by the leaders of all three parties, who argue it is crucial for law enforcement, but loathed by many Tory backbenchers who argue it is used to send British people to be tried abroad on minor offences.
The Speaker, John Bercow, suggested the government’s attempts to avoid a vote on the issue – and therefore a backbench rebellion – would be regarded by the public as contemptuous, while Tory MPs called the decision underhand and tyrannical.
Labour then called a vote on whether the entire debate should be abandoned, which provoked panic among Tory whips.
Senior Tories, including David Cameron, were forced to rush back from the Lord Mayor’s dinner wearing white tie, while supportive backbenchers engaged in a US-style filibuster in the Commons to ensure the government was not defeated.
After narrowly winning that vote, the government won the overall motion in favour of the EU justice and home affairs measures with only 36 MPs rebelling. But there are now likely to be recriminations within the Conservatives about how home secretary Theresa May and chief whip Michael Gove allowed such confusion and panic over what was only ever likely to be a minor backbench rebellion.

Cameron facing rebellion as he denies MPs vote on European arrest warrant
Commons Speaker John Bercow says public would regard surprise decision not to allow vote on EAW as ‘contemptuous’

David Cameron has withdrawn his commitment to holding a vote on the European arrest warrant in a move that the Speaker of the House of Commons said would be regarded as “contemptuous” by the public.

MPs from all parties lined up to criticise a government “stitch-up” as it emerged they would be allowed to vote on only 11 relatively minor EU justice and home affairs measures, not the whole package of 35 that includes the European arrest warrant.

The controversial warrant is backed by all three party leaders but opposed by dozens of Conservative backbenchers over fears that Britons are being sent for trial abroad for minor offences.

David Cameron faces backbench revolt over European arrest warrant
Up to 90 Tories are set to oppose the UK rejoining the measure, arguing it makes it too easy for Britons to face trial abroad

David Cameron will face a backbench rebellion over the European arrest warrant 10 days before the Rochester byelection, after it was confirmed a debate on the controversial measure will happen on Monday.
William Hague, the leader of the Commons, said MPs will have a full day to debate whether the UK should rejoin the arrest warrant and 34 other EU crime and security measures just before they break up for an autumn recess.
Between 60 and 90 Tory backbenchers are expected to argue against the warrant, which they claim means British citizens are too easily sent to other European countries to face trial.
Cameron had been expected to delay the vote until after the 20 November byelection, in which the Conservatives are fighting to hold Rochester against Ukip, as the prime minister has until 1 December to decide whether to opt back into the measures.

It’s not just Eurosceptics who think the European arrest warrant is rotten

Today the government will ask MPs to approve its decision to opt Britain back in to a package of 35 EU justice and home affairs measures ranging from data protection to security at football matches. Predictably, the vote has become a political football – a proxy for the broader debate raging over our membership of the EU. In reality, this is about the kind of European cooperation we want and, depressingly, parliamentarians will have little real choice, including on the thorny issue of the European arrest warrant (EAW).

Liberty has long called for reform of EU extradition arrangements as part of our wider campaign against unfair, summary extradition. We have never argued that the warrant should be dropped, but we have consistently called for greater safeguards to allow a balance to be struck between the broad public interest in effective extradition and the protection of basic rights and freedoms. Among the protections we have sought is a requirement that a basic or prima facie case be made in a domestic court before a British resident is extradited. We are not alone in calling for change: earlier this year the European parliament adopted a resolution setting out essential reforms to the EAW.

... Have there been problems with the EAW?
An unintended consequence of the EAW is that issuing countries can use it to pursue people for relatively minor offences. Opponents of the EAW cite concerns that it is too easy for UK citizens to be extradited. Poland has made most use of the system, but not always for serious offences. Eurosceptics have argued that it is a waste of money to spend £30,000 sending a Pole back from London to Warsaw to face charges of 100 outstanding parking tickets. But this problem could rectified simply by raising the threshold for the seriousness of the crimes involved.
... read all the article in The Guardian

2013

July

A British opt-out of the EU arrest warrant will be good for the freedom of all Europeans

Let’s hope the Government doesn’t bow to the lobbying of powerful but unelected securocrats and senior police officers this week.
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, will on Tuesday set out details of Britain’s “opt-outs” on EU justice and home affairs measures.
Britain has until June 2014 to decide whether to opt-out of 133 measures that will then be fully transferred to become EU powers or “competences” in Brussels newspeak.
The criteria for making this decision should be civil liberties and accountability not the special pleading of officials in the coercive arm of the state.
If the transfer goes ahead it would give the European Court of Justice, an administrative tribunal not a proper court, the final say over people’s liberty in the case of the EU arrest warrant.
Although there are other important measures on the list, the arrest warrant is the most significant from the point of civil liberties as it allows people to locked up and deported on nothing more than the word of a police officer.
People, anyone in the EU, can be imprisoned and then extradited to a foreign jurisdiction, and held indefinitely, on suspicion of crimes that are not even an offence on their own home territory.
Obviously, the police are keen on having such powers and British plod are the most enthusiastic, showing their characteristic disregard for liberty when it comes to their convenience.
... read the full article by Bruno Waterfield in The Telegraph

A senior Swedish judge has said that the sex-crime allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange are "a mess", and praised him for leaking classified US documents.
Speaking on Wednesday at the University of Adelaide in Australia, Stefan Lindskog, chairman of the Supreme Court of Sweden, also listed legal obstacles to extraditing the 41-year-old Australian to the United States to face prosecution for exposing thousands of classified documents.
Lindskog was critical of the Swedish criminal investigation, and suggested that Sweden's extradition treaty with the United States would not apply to Assange.
"I think it is a mess,'' said Lindskog, referring to the Swedish criminal investigation. "Basically, I think there are some misunderstandings, especially when it comes to the issue of extradition.''
"Extradition shall not be granted when alleged crimes [are] military or political in nature,'' Lindskog said.
Assange has taken asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since last June to avoid extradition to Sweden on sex crime allegations.
... more in AlJazeera

2012

William Dartmouth UKIP MEP joins Mike Turner to update us on the progress of the Arrest of Mike's son and friend, under the EU Arrest Warrant which saw them jailed in Hungary for an alleged minor offence. The Hungarian Law allows charged prisoners to be held in prison for up to 4 years without a court trial!

Below is a the story of this Tyrannical arrest as originaly reported in 2010. William Dartmouth is now helping them with this case:
"Mike and Jason agreed to go to Budapest to answer charges of Fraud. The treatment they are receiving in the prison there is no better than we heard of in Stalinist States! This is an EU country and yet has a total denial of the basic HUMAN RIGHTS which are almost forced on prisoners here in the UK. The EU arrest warrant overrides our own Courts of Law and legal system. Mike and Jason are victims of a gross injustice - which is the EU Napoleonic system Corpus Jurus - GUILTY until you prove yourself innocent - a system fast eroding our own HABEUS CORPUS in the UK, that is innocent until proven guilty. Lord Pearson, at that time Leader of UKIP, is helping the Budapest 2.

Mr Gary McKinnon will not face UK charges: Computer hacker Gary McKinnon, whose extradition to the US was blocked, will not face charges in the UK, bringing to an end a 10-year legal battle.
Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC said the chances of a successful conviction were "not high".
Janis Sharp, Mr McKinnon's mother, said the news was "amazing" and she was grateful the case was "all over now".
Mr McKinnon, 46, admits accessing US government computers but says he was looking for evidence of UFOs.
The US Department of Justice said it would continue to collaborate with the UK government on a "wide range of shared concerns".
Mr Starmer announced the decision not to prosecute some three months after Home Secretary Theresa May stopped Mr McKinnon's extradition ... [+]

October

The EU Arrest Warrant serves Britain badly
Dealing with extradition cases costs the British state at least £27 million a year, and the crimes they deal with are often trivial or mere unsubstantiated allegations

Theoretically, the European Arrest Warrant – which makes it easier to extradite citizens of one EU country to face criminal charges in another – has some significant advantages. But in reality, it does not work smoothly or beneficently in most cases. One basic problem is that the European regulations have been interpreted by British courts to mean that they are not allowed to examine the merits of an extradition request, and that they must endorse it without checking whether it is supported by reliable evidence. As a result, British citizens have been extradited to countries such as Bulgaria and Romania, whose legal systems cannot be described as fair or free from the taint of corruption. Britons have ended up serving long sentences in ghastly prisons after trials that would never have resulted in guilty verdicts in the UK. Indeed, the allegations would never even have led to prosecutions.

There is a second problem with the warrant. Requests from other EU countries to extradite their own citizens living in Britain have risen fourfold over the past three years, clogging up our courts and costing British taxpayers millions. Last year, 1,355 people were sent for trial in other EU countries by British courts under the warrant. Dealing with these cases costs the British state at least £27 million. As our reporters – who attended two days of typical extradition proceedings in court – discovered, the court process itself is chronically inefficient and cumbersome. Most cases are adjourned because critical people or documents cannot be located. Moreover, some of the offences for which extradition is requested are trivial: in one case, for instance, a Pole living in Britain was wanted by the Polish authorities for stealing a wheelbarrow and tools worth just £60; in another, the Poles sought the extradition of one of their citizens because he had failed to pay a fine.

Under the Lisbon Treaty, the British Government has the option of opting out of more than 100 EU regulations relating to extradition and transnational justice. If we opted out of everything, then we could decide which of those regulations we want to opt back into. That is the strategy which David Cameron and the Coalition seem committed to following. We applaud the Prime Minister and the Cabinet for their desire to remedy an unacceptable situation, but the question has to be asked: why has it taken so long? The German courts have for several years operated a “proportionality test” before devoting time and energy to extradition cases: the extradition request has to be for a serious crime, rather than a trivial one. That cuts down the amount of money and time the German courts devote to extradition cases significantly, and if a similar test were introduced here, it would have the effect of reducing a sizeable proportion of the cases that occupy our courts. The Germans instituted their test without opting out of anything: they simply noted that the principle of proportionality is part of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, and used that as the basis for employing the test. This proportionality rule has the additional benefit of allowing the Germans to consider the cost and effort of formal extradition before proceeding.

The Dutch, meanwhile, have acted to ensure that Dutch citizens cannot be extradited for actions that are not crimes in Holland, and the French appear simply never to extradite a French citizen for trial in a foreign country. No sanctions have been imposed on either country by the EU authorities. Indeed, they appear to condone, or at least tolerate, the French and Dutch practices. Why have we not followed the German, French and Dutch examples? It would be the easiest way to protect our citizens from the injustices that the European Arrest Warrant can bring, and to stop our courts’ time being wasted on trivial extradition requests.

All the same, the British Government is right to take on the European Arrest Warrant at the most fundamental level: the way the law itself was made. The law and its associated regulations illustrate the basic problem with EU regulations. They have no democratic mandate. They are not made by an elected body but by a committee appointed in secret that sits in secret. Laws made in that fashion can never command the legitimacy they need to have if citizens are to respect and to obey them. That is why the Government is right to reject the EU justice regulations en masse, opting back in only to those that will be endorsed by the British people.

None should be extradited if DEMOCRACY and FAIRNESS prevail for a mere complain or allegation; to take a declaration there is Internet and is free of charge instead of wasting significant amounts of public money and ruining innocent human lifes:
Assange threatens to sue Australia’s Prime Minister

There’s nothing new about asylum seekers dominating Australian media; those attempting to reach Australian shores by boat regularly make headlines.
But on Monday it was an asylum seeker who already has an Australian passport who led the news: Julian Assange.
Giving an interview to the pressure-group GetUp!, from his bolt-hole in Ecuador’s London embassy - in which he’s stuck - Assange tried to pull at the heart-strings.
“I can’t go and visit my family. I can’t do things that are important to many people. I can’t view the skyline. I can’t visit my homeland.”
If that was the emotion, the meat was a threat to sue Australia’s Prime Minister. Assange has consistently complained about the way, he feels, his country has dis-owned him.
He says he has received minimal consular support in his battles with British - and Swedish - authorities. On the contrary, he says, his own country’s leaders have effectively thrown him to the dogs.
In his interview with GetUp! Assange made a specific threat: he had hired, he said, Sydney lawyers to look into whether he has been defamed by Australian Prime Minister. In a story that has already had more twists and turns than most paperback thrillers – and has just become the subject of an Australian tele-movie - here was the latest: Julian Assange might sue Julia Gillard.
The alleged defamation concerns an interview she gave in 2010. In it she said that not only were Wikileaks leaks ‘grossly irresponsible’ but also – crucially - ‘illegal’. That comment, Assange claims, has damaged WIkileaks because – citing it – commercial organisations have withdrawn their support.

Julian Assange threatened legal action against a film festival in an attempt to pressure them not to show a documentary on the history of WikiLeaks.
Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, threatened to sue the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in the United States if they broadcast the documentary, 'WikiLeaks: Secrets and Lies', earlier this year.
The legal threats came to light after media regulator Ofcom rejected a detailed complaint from Assange about the programme on Monday.
Assange had complained that the programme, which first aired on More4 in the UK on 29 November 2011, was libellous, unfair and had invaded his privacy.
The Australian whistleblower, who is fighting extradition to Sweden where he faces sexual assault allegations, attempted to get the programme banned from public screenings in the US, sending a tersely-worded email, seen by the Guardian, headed "LETTER BEFORE ACTION" to festival organisers. Assange is understood to have sent a similar email to US cable news broadcaster CNBC.
In the email, which carried Assange's signature, he told a SXSW organiser: "Please also send me full details of SXSW's formal complaints procedure. This latter request is made without prejudice to any subsequent legal action I may take against SXSW for the screening of this libellous programme."
He claimed in the email that Oxford Film & Television, the independent British production firm behind the programme, was "under investigation by the UK statutory regulator Ofcom for multiple breaches of the Broadcasting Code".
Ofcom had undertaken an investigation into whether Assange's complaints about the programme were justified and ruled on Monday they were not.
...more in The GuardianClick here to watch the documentary and make your own opinion

Mother of WikiLeaks founder in Ecuador to plea for son's asylum request, together with Baltasar Garzon who is also an advisor to president Correa´s administration

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's mother met with Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino on Monday in Quito as she pleaded for her son's asylum request.
Mr Assange has been taking refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since June 19.
The former computer hacker, who enraged Washington in 2010 when his WikiLeaks website published secret US diplomatic cables, is wanted for questioning in Sweden over sex crime allegations.
The Australian anti-secrecy campaigner has broken his bail terms and requested asylum in Ecuador because he fears he could be sent to the United States where his life would be at risk.
Mr Assange's mother said that her son chose Ecuador because its constitution enshrines human rights and because it does not have the death penalty

Despite more than 210,000 people signing Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales’ petition,the Home Office have said that they do not intend to block the extradition of Richard O’Dwyer.
America is trying to prosecute a UK citizen for an alleged crime which took place on UK soil.
In yet another stark illustration of how one-sided the UK-US extradition relationship has become – not to mention the subservience of officials who theoretically are supposed to protect the interests of British citizens – a 24 year old faces up to a decade in a US prison for copyright offences.
He has never been arrested or charged with an offence under UK law, his site was not hosted in the US and he has lived in the UK all of his life. Basic principles of justice have been abandoned. If there was a crime it should be investigated and tried here in the UK, like any other crime.
Richard’s fate now rests on his appeal later in the year. You can sign the petition here.

Tweeter Paul Chambers was victim of 'legal steamroller', High Court hears
Paul Chambers, an accountant found guilty of sending a "menacing tweet" was the victim of a legal "steamroller" that threatened to make the law look silly, it was argued at the High Court today.

Chambers, 27, said he thought that no-one would ever have taken seriously his joking threat to blow an airport "sky high".
He said he sent the tweet to his 600 "followers" in a moment of frustration after Robin Hood Airport in South Yorkshire was closed by snow in January 2010.
But he was convicted at Doncaster Magistrates' Court of sending "a message of a menacing character", contrary to provisions of the 2003 Communications Act, fined £385 and ordered to pay £600 costs.
Today he asked two High Court judges to overturn a Doncaster Crown Court decision in November 2010 upholding his conviction and sentence - a decision which pushed the costs order against him up to £2,600.
Among his many supporters are fellow "twitter comedians" Charlie Brooker and Stephen Fry. Also present in court are the comedians Graham Linehan and Al Murray.
The message he tweeted read: "Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!"
...Today at London's High Court, Ben Emmerson QC, appearing for Chambers, argued the Crown Court had erred in law - and in common sense.
Mr Emmerson suggested it was hardly likely that anyone planning to blow up an airport would post their intentions on Twitter.
He told Lord Justice Gross and Mr Justice Irwin that conviction and sentence were normally meant to have a deterrent effect, but in the Chambers' case they had the opposite effect.
His conviction caused resentment and triggered an "I am Spartacus!" campaign in which 4,000 people tweeted the Chambers message across Twitter - "none of whom were arrested", said Mr Emmerson.
He added: "One has to inject common sense to avoid the law ending up looking silly."

In its statement refusing to reopen the case, the supreme court said it had agreed unanimously that extradition proceedings should not begin for another two weeks.
It added: "Had Ms Rose been minded to challenge the applicability of [the Vienna convention on the law of treaties] or the applicability of state practice [on interpreting treaties] … she had the opportunity to do so. She made no such challenge.
"Her submissions were to the effect that caution should be exercised when considering the effect of state practice. For these reasons the court considers that this application is without merit and it is dismissed." ... [+]Read also:Wikileaks' Julian Assange seeks asylum in Ecuador embassy - a country with a polemic record on freedom of press ... [+]

The supreme court will deliver its verdict next Wednesday on whether or not the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, should be deported to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.
The short judgment on 30 May will include an explanation of the decision the seven-strong panel of justices reaches. It is expected to focus on the narrow issue of whether or not a European arrest warrant (EAW) issued by a prosecutor is valid.
EU treaty provisions governing extradition specify that a warrant must be drawn up by "competent judicial authorities". Lawyers for Assange argue that a prosecutor is not a judge or a "judicial" official.
Clare Montgomery QC, for the Swedish authorities, maintained that the arrest warrant was valid because judicial authorities, at least in the preliminary stages of investigations where arrest is being sought, need not be independent and impartial.
If the supreme court blocks the Swedish extradition request it will throw the EAW system into turmoil and have significant implications for other extradition cases within Europe.
The seven justices who heard the appeal are Lord Phillips, Lord Walker, Lady Hale, Lord Brown, Lord Mance, Lord Kerr and Lord Dyson. The fact that so many judges are considering the case suggests that they recognise it is a particularly complex and significant issue. The two-day appeal hearing was held at the beginning of February. ... [+]

The creation of a European Union Police State
By
Gerard Batten MEP

“Habeas Corpus and trial by jury are the supreme protection
of ordinary people from the state. The power of the executive
to cast a man in prison without formulating a charge, or deny
him the judgement by his peers, is the odious foundation
of totalitarian governments”
Winston Churchill

Exactly twenty years ago I read the Maastricht Treaty (Treaty on European
Union). It read like the surrender document of a defeated nation. I was so
appalled it inspired me to go into active politics and help form the UK
Independence Party. At the time I, and my UKIP colleagues, were regarded
as ‘alarmists’ at the very least when we warned where the great European
project was heading. The things we warned against have come to pass and
worse is yet to come.

Now almost every major area of public policy is either already under the control
of the European Union or soon to be so: from Agriculture and Fishing; Health
and Safety; Environment; Transport; Immigration and Asylum; Energy; Tourism;
to Space and Sport; to name just a few. Under the Lisbon Treaty there is a
common Foreign Policy leading to a common Security and Defence policy -
Britain’s armed forces are being systematically run down in order to absorb
them into a ‘common European defence identity’. One of the first actions of
the Coalition Government was to sign a treaty with the French to share an
aircraft carrier.

Membership of the European Union costs Britain billions of pounds every year
in direct contributions to the EU Budget and in indirect and unnecessary costs
on the economy. In return we have lost control of our own democracy. A report
by the German parliament in 2006 calculated that about 84% of new laws
now originate in the EU. We are no longer a free or independent country in
any meaningful sense. And now we see undemocratic economic and financial
Government being imposed on countries like Greece in order to shore up the
euro at any cost. Anyone who believes that the European Union is anything
other than a political project to create a centralised undemocratic European
state is either lying to themselves or to others.

Many of those still aware of our constitutional history, and of Magna Carta, the
Bill of Rights and Habeas Corpus, may think that their basic freedoms are still
protected under the law. Well they are wrong. Our most basic freedoms are
being undermined and destroyed by the creation of an EU system of criminal
law. This is being done by stealth, introduced gradually piece by piece until the
intended jig-saw fits together as a whole.

My constituent Dr. Miguel-Angel Meizoso is wanted in [Majorca] Spain on a private
complaint for a fraud he has not yet committed – but allegedly that he wants
to commit in the future.

In Spain, Dr. Meizoso is the president of a government-backed foundation taking
care of a valuable historic estate in Majorca. It is alleged that while setting up
the foundation, he deceived the previous owner of the estate about its purpose:
he claimed it was a public service, while his real plan was to sell the property
and run away with the money. Under the Spanish law, such a plan would be
utterly unrealistic: a president of a ‘public interest’ foundation cannot just sell its
objects! Of course, Dr. Meizoso has not taken or contemplated any steps in that
direction.

He believes the absurd EAW against him results from a corrupt scheme devised
in the local government for the benefit of property developers, who want to lay
their hands on the estate. They have taken advantage of the antiquated Spanish
system of criminal procedure, where a single Investigative Magistrate may issue
an arrest warrant on a private complaint, without any scrutiny or examination
of evidence. If surrendered, Dr. Meizoso may spend up to two years in prison
without charge or trial.

The English court has now ordered his extradition. In this desperate situation,
my constituent appealed to me, and we have helped him to continue resistance
in a very unorthodox way. The Extradition Act includes a special privilege against
extradition of asylum-seekers; so he applied for political asylum, and I wrote
to the Home Secretary supporting this.

It is obviously unusual to ask for asylum having lived in Britain for over 20 years;
and this is probably the first time that a EU citizen asks asylum from the
EU just like from any other foreign dictatorship. Yet, we have now reached
an insane situation where he can only protect his liberty by becoming an
asylum-seeker in his own country. He is, I fear, not the last one who will have to
Freedom, Security & Justice? or The Creation of a European Union Police State 37
do that. Even so, his future still hangs in the balance, as his asylum case is about
to be considered by the High Court.

Another unfair extradition, this time to USA, without prima facie evidence:

Elaine Tappin, the wife of retired British businessman Christopher Tappin who was extradited to the US for alleged arms dealing, broke down in tears today as she spoke of her despair that nobody was prepared to listen to his defence before “carting him off”.
Mrs Tappin said she could not believe her husband Christopher, 65, was not given the chance to put his side of the case before losing his two-year battle against being sent to America last week.
She was giving evidence to MPs in London as Tappin, who faces up to 35 years in jail if convicted of selling batteries for Iranian missiles, faced his first appearance in a US courtroom tonight.
Mrs Tappin, 62, of Orpington, Kent, broke down in tears as she described how her family felt “incredulity, frustration, heartrending sadness, despair and utter disbelief” as they faced a “wholly uncertain future”.
In a written statement which Mrs Tappin was unable to finish reading, she went on: “At the heart of our despair is the fact that nobody was prepared to listen to Chris's defence before carting him off.
“They ticked the boxes but were deaf and blind to the possibility of injustice. Chris is simply another statistic.
...“Britain has allowed this to happen to Chris - next time it could be someone close to you. I now lie awake at night not daring to contemplate how Chris will fare if bail is denied him at the end of this week.”

...His MP, Tory Jo Johnson, and UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, who has known the businessman for nearly 40 years, have asked Home Secretary Theresa May to intervene to ensure the US authorities do not object to bail.
Tappin denies attempting to sell batteries for surface-to-air missiles which were to be shipped from the US to Tehran via the Netherlands.
He has said that, for justice to be done, he should be tried by a jury of his peers in the UK, not a jury 3,000 miles away.
But magistrates and the High Court backed his extradition and he exhausted his appeal options earlier this month when a last-ditch plea to human rights judges was rejected.
Prime Minister David Cameron said last week that the Government would carry out a “proper, sober and thoughtful” review of the UK's extradition arrangements with the US.
Mrs Tappin said she had still not been able to talk to her husband since he was extradited.
She said the UK Consulate called the family last night and “informed us that Chris was being held in isolation, locked up for 23 hours a day, and denied access to any reading material”.
She said it was the “cruellest blow” when her husband lost his battle against extradition, saying he “was stunned and totally devastated when his appeal was rejected”.
Mrs Tappin went on: “Shouldn't it be a basic requirement that a proper case be made out against Chris in a UK court before subjecting him to total disruption to his life, and freedom, that extradition entails? Isn't that the cornerstone of British justice?”
...more information in The Telgraph - The Guardian - BBC - The Independent
And at Friends Extradited - Fair Trials International - Liberty

Read also:David Cameron 'not sympathetic' to plight of alleged arms dealer Christopher Tappin: ...and does not intend to discuss his case during forthcoming meeting with President Obama, The Daily Telegraph understands... Mr Tappin is being held on remand in a jail in New Mexico after being denied bail following his extradition last month. His family and friends, who include the UKIP leader Nigel Farage, have raised a 4,000-signature petition demanding that Mr Cameron debates the US-UK extradition treaty with Mr Obama.
...Mr Tappin's British solicitor, Karen Todner, said: "If there is evidence against Mr Tappin we don’t know about it because he was extradited without knowing the evidence against him. It's not for Mr Cameron to judge someone’s innocence or guilt. If there is evidence against him or he is guilty, then let him stand trial in the UK."

Britain's highest court has said seven justices will hear the arguments because of the "great public importance of the issue raised" by the case.
A spokesman said the issue was "whether a prosecutor is a judicial authority".
Mr Assange is wanted by Swedish authorities for questioning over alleged sex offences, which he denies.
The 40-year-old Australian, who remains on conditional bail in the UK, claims the allegations against him are politically motivated.
He is accused of raping one woman and "sexually molesting and coercing" another in Stockholm in August 2010.
Mr Assange's Wikileaks website published a mass of material from leaked diplomatic cables embarrassing several governments.
The High Court previously approved his extradition, a decision that Mr Assange argues was unlawful.
In December, two High Court judges, Sir John Thomas and Mr Justice Ouseley, decided that Mr Assange had raised a question on extradition law "of general public importance" and allowed him to ask the Supreme Court for a final UK ruling.
Later that month, a Supreme Court spokesman said its justices had agreed to hear the case "given the great public importance of the issue raised, which is whether a prosecutor is a judicial authority".
The hearing will last two days and the judgement is expected to be reserved.
...more in the BBC - Al Jazeera - The Guardian - The Telegraph - Publico - El Mundo - The IndependentJulian Assange extradition appeal at supreme court - live blogWatch the hearing in the Supreme Court live

As a UKIP MEP for London since 2004,Gerard Batten has been a prominent critic of the European Arrest Warrant, which he sees as a grave threat to civil liberties. He was involved in public campaigns over controversial EAW cases, especially those of his constituents Andrew Symeou and Miguel-Angel Meizoso. He made a detailed written submission for the recent extradition review by Sir Scott Baker’s panel, and published a critical pamphlet attacking the panel’s report.

Vladimir Bukovsky was one of the founders of the human rights movement in the Soviet Union in 1960s and 1970s and one of the most prominent Soviet political prisoners for 12 years. He was released from prison and famously exchanged for a Chilean communist leader in 1976, and lives in the UK since 1978. He was a key expert witness in the landmark Constitutional Court case in Russia Communist Party v President Yeltsin (1992), where the communist rule was condemned as unconstitutional and incompatible with the rule of law. In his more recent books and articles, he argues that the European Union is in danger of developing into a new Soviet Union, and singled out the European Arrest Warrant as a particular threat to human rights.

The joint interveners are represented by Paul Diamond, a top human rights barrister.

Submission: The Interveners invite the Supreme Court to go beyond the narrow procedural issues of the Assange case, and use this opportunity to reform the law on the European Arrest Warrant to safeguard civil liberties.

The High Court has ruled that a Swedish prosecutor should be regarded as a ‘judicial authority’ for the purposes of the Extradition Act 2003, and therefore can lawfully issue an EAW against Mr. Assange. The Supreme Court will reconsider that judgement on 1-2 February.

The Interveners argue that the judgement against Mr. Assange, like many earlier judgements in EAW cases (e.g. in the infamous case of Andrew Symeou – see para 26 of the submission), is incompatible with fundamental principles of English constitution. It distorts the meaning of the words in an Act of Parliament and thus undermines parliamentary sovereignty. It misinterprets the law in order to suit the EU’s political objective of creating a common ‘area of freedom, security and justice’, substituting the rule of law for the ‘rule of ideology’. Elevating a prosecutor to the rank of a ‘judicial authority’ contradicts the principle which had been held sacred in the English common law since ancient times: nobody can be a judge in his own case.

By their very nature, law and ideology are direct opposites. The law is all about enforcing clear rules; an ideology is all about pursuing vague ideals. The law is naturally static; an ideology is naturally dynamic. An ideology is always a legend, a dream; it explains itself in metaphors; it strives to change the world and boldly challenges the dull reality. The whole object of law, by contrast, is to be as clear and precise as possible. The law has to be realistic, take due account of the imperfections of the universe, and express itself in plain language. Consequently, whilst ideology may well inspire legislators to make the law and the citizens to obey it, one cannot write an ideology itself into the law – no more than the medieval scholasts could calculate exactly how many angels can dance together on the point of the same needle.

One of the Interveners, Mr. Bukovsky, had the misfortune of being born in the Soviet Union, where the rule of ideology had completely subdued the rule of law. He was one of the leading figures in the human rights movement, whose sole purpose was to affirm the rule of law over the ideology against all the odds, even though the entire repressive machine of the state was against them. He spent 12 years in the Soviet Gulag because his legal arguments carried no weight in the Soviet courts dominated by ideology. The judgements against him had been written ahead of the trial by the Communist Party and only rubber-stamped by the judges. His goal at every trial was not to be acquitted, but the show the travesty of justice for what it was. In brief, he had the benefit of exploring this basic dichotomy of jurisprudence most thoroughly in the cells of KGB prisons. Today, with growing horror, he once again observes an ideology – the EU ideology – slowly but surely undermining the rule of law in this country.

The difference between the rule of law and of an ideology is precisely what distinguishes a democracy from a totalitarian regime. It was of necessity the central legal issue of Nuremberg trial. It was also the central legal issue in the Russian case of Communist Party v President Yeltsin (1992), where the Constitutional Court called upon Mr. Bukovsky’s expertise on the issue. It is a basic problem of the sharia law, which includes the Islamic religion as its most fundamental part. And indeed, your Lordships’ great predecessors have been through the same dichotomy, most famously in Bowman v Secular Society. They held that while the English law was undoubtedly a Christian law, the Christian religion itself was not a part of it. The phrase ‘Christianity is a part of the law of England’, even though it had been affirmed by most eminent legal authorities of the past centuries, was ‘rhetoric’ and not law.
It may or may not be possible to reconcile the conflicting principles of the British and European law. It is manifestly impossible to reconcile the British or any other law with the EU’s or any other ideology. The European Communities Act 1972 incorporates the body of European law into the British law; it did not and could not elevate the EU political principles to the rank of law.

In this sense, the High Court judgement against the Appellant not merely conflicts with the express provisions of the statute and the Framework Decision; it undermines the rule of law itself. A court of law may not answer a legal question by first enquiring what kind of answer would bring us closer to the ‘European dream’, ‘ever closer union’, or ‘a common area of freedom, security and justice’. All those may be very sound political ideas, or just utopian claptrap. Many would passionately advocate one or the other view of them.

This debate may go on forever or may be resolved tomorrow – but whatever happens, this debate belongs outside the courtroom. The courts should be concerned with the law alone.

The High Court paved the way today for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to pursue his case against extradition to Sweden in the Supreme Court.
Two judges ruled that his case raised a question "of general public importance" which should be decided by the highest court in the land "as quickly as possible".
Assange, who faces sex crime allegations, was in the London court for the ruling.
Although the judges refused Assange permission to appeal, they ruled the Supreme Court should have the last word.
The door to a fresh hearing was opened by Sir John Thomas and Mr Justice Ouseley, the judges who recently dismissed Assange's application for judicial review.
In certifying a question, the judges were giving Assange access to the Supreme Court.
He now has to ask the Supreme Court justices to hear his case.
...However it would be left to the Supreme Court to decide whether to give Assange actual leave to appeal.
...Assange has instructed his lawyers to resist his extradition to Sweden, on the grounds that European arrest warrants are not valid when a suspect is only wanted for questioning.
His legal team also argued that Mr Assange's life would be in danger if he was extradited to Sweden.
They say that he could face “rendition” from there to the US, where there have been calls for his arrest on national security grounds following WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of leaked US Embassy cables.
Assange was cheered as he left the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
He said the issue of extradition safeguards concerned many people.There are "many aggrieved families in the UK and other countries and in Europe struggling for justice".
Assange said: "This afternoon the Parliament of the UK is considering in depth the matters that arise from various extradition cases in the UK, including my own.
"Today the High Court has decided that an issue arises from my own case that is of general public importance and may be of assistance to other cases and should be heard by the Supreme Court.
"I think that is the correct decision, and I am thankful. The long struggle for justice for me and others continues."

There is only one plausible way to advocate the European Arrest Warrant – the
classic propaganda technique of defending the indefensible. Like all great inventions,
it is simple: keep a straight face and confidently utter a monstrous lie. The panel has
succeeded in that, even if they failed everywhere else. The report keeps repeating in
several places: 'No evidence was presented to us to suggest that European arrest
warrants are being issued in cases where there is insufficient evidence.' What
about Symeou, the Crete Five, Meizoso, etc., etc.? My own submission to the panel
included the evidence of many such cases, and I am sure that the other critics of the
EAW did not fail to mention them in their own submissions.

This report has been written as a polemical piece; and yet, it is a very poor polemical
piece simply because it does not answer the criticism. There are plenty of red
herrings, such as the fascinating treatise on the history of extradition in chapter 3,
which includes about every bit of criticism against the prima facie case requirement
ever made anywhere in the world within the past three centuries. We learn that the
French and the Spanish were particularly unhappy about it because much of the
evidence used in continental courts would not be admissible under our law of
evidence. That argument is hardly persuasive in itself: our rules of evidence were there
as a safeguard of the rights of the suspect, and of course, it is entirely fair to ask the
foreign prosecutors to satisfy the same requirements as we put to our own prosecutors.
In any case, our law of evidence has been dramatically relaxed by now, and would
no longer be such a great obstacle. Yet, the report keeps repeating this out-of-date
argument like a mantra. Little wonder: they simply do not have a better argument
against the prima facie case requirement.

The cases where the EAW has led to horrific miscarriages of justice are notorious, from Andrew Symeou to Julian Assange, and from the'Crete Five' to Dr. Meizoso. I detailed these cases in my own submission to the panel. Lord Baker and his colleagues not only ignored them but now assert something that is simply untrue, they claim: 'No evidence was presented to us to suggest that European arrest warrants are being issued in cases where there is insufficient evidence'. My submission alone gives evidence of many such cases.

The panel has given a green light to similar abuses in the future. Our courts will continue to be compelled to send any British citizen to any other EU member state simply on the strength of a piece of paper. As I have said on many occasions before, extradition, now merely ‘judicial surrender’ has been reduced to a mere bureaucratic formality, to 'tick-box justice', where the role of British judges is reduced to checking that the EAW form is filled correctly. The panel had an opportunity to recommend this ends but instead will now bear responsibility for the ruined lives of innocent victims in the future.

The report invites us to place our hopes into empty promises of the EU bureaucracy to improve the system at some point in the future, making it more 'proportionate'. Proportionality is a red herring: ‘proportionality’ would not have prevented any of those notorious abuses and will solve nothing. The fundamental problem with the EAW is that British courts are not allowed to based their decision to extradite on the prima facie evidence against the accused and have no real power to refuse extradition, even when it is obvious to the court that a grave injustice is being done.

It is the first duty of the UK government to protect the ancient liberties of UK citizens; first and foremost to protect our countrymen from arbitrary arrest and persecution. Leaving this to the EU is irresponsible to say the least. The government must now adhere to its past commitment to dismantle the New Labour 'police state' innovations. They should reject Lord Baker's recommendations and abolish the EAW urgently and unilaterally. At the very least, it must opt-out of the EAW as the system will be re-negotiated in 2014.

We are going to leave for another moment what Meizoso has to tell the world. It is old and painful, and it affects well-known personalities, who may have contributed to violate human rights by their negligence. The last 31 years Meizoso has been unable to see his daughters.

What he has to tell Majorca has to do with Borges. Meizoso chairs a foundation3 which owns a estate in Valldemossa, Can Mossenya, that was created to protect that estate, in which he organized an international symposium on Borges. But Meizoso has been unable to set foot in Majorca for years now, because a few Mafiosi, according to his words, want to undo the Foundation.

And they have managed that the administration of “Justice” investigates him for something really unusual and undemonstrable: to have created a foundation to enrich himself. That is to say, for a future crime. It seems that what Meizoso has done is to put much of his money into protecting Can Mossenya. And he deeply regrets to have done it.

Meizoso is a doctor in Psychology and lives in London. He has declared that Kodama has participated in this campaign of defamation, trying to prevent him from leading any association of Friends of Borges, and that she team with Jaume Matas, Rosa Estarás, the town mayor Joan Muntaner Marroig and the Balearic media tycoon Pedro Serra”. But he indicates the involvement of other people: "the intellectual author of this criminal plot (...) who were it not for the bankruptcy of Spain would be committing another fraud in Can Mossenya with the "real estate development called Saint John Baptist" is no other than Maria Antonia Munar". In the end, Meizoso denounces that the criminal plot against him has been instigated by the Majorca Unionist gang. He denounced to the investigative magistrate of this case, Ana San Jose Cabero, the betrayal of local solicitors one after another, one of them for being member of the UM circle (Josep Rosselló Salamanca) and others because they sold themselves as experts to reform the Balearic Autonomic Charter (Ribas Garau and Pons Irazazábal). What if Meizoso is not a paranoiac and he is telling the truth?

Meizoso thinks that they want to remove him from Can Mossenya to make lucrative deals with the protected estate. It is true that everything looks murky and a bit confusing, and that is not Kodama who can do such deals. The property is a monument to the memory of Borges in Valldemossa, and to a friend of his young years Jacobo Sureda.

If the story is as Meizoso reports, he represents the original will of the previous owner of Can Mossenya, Pilar Montaner, who wanted to preserve the estate; and Kodama with a few Majorcans are seeking to make business. Kodama called Meizoso fraudster an "ordinary criminal" and told the press: “I know that he knew Borges, in the Seventies, in Paris. I know it because Borges himself warned me: `With this man none should share even a glass of water' ". Marieta, it impossible to believe you.

Meizoso has stated that he did not knew personally the man Borges.

Now that Kodama has provide new evidence of her voracity for money, in the case of the remake of "El Hacedor", it may make easier to place the label of swindler to the person who deserves it. Meizoso, of course, knows a lot about Borges. I have had the occasion to listen to him speak on the subject and his scholarship is beyond doubt. Kodama has shown abundantly that she does not. She acknowledge she had not read the book by Agustín Fernandez Mallo that she had managed to forbid. Equally she may not have read a line of the author she is exploiting to make a comfortable living. I do not know if Borges can be call her husband.

Meizoso has denounced that he has been persecuted because “the political authorities of Valldemossa wants to benefit from an illegal real estate development in the estate protected by the Foundation". He is victim of an European Arrest Warrant issued by an investigative magistrate from Majorca. Perhaps the worse idea by the plaintiff side was to seek an ally in Kodama.

Each one accuses each other of Mafia behaviour. Who are the Mafiosi? The real estate development plot by local politicians [in a National Heritage site protected by the Foundation chaired by Dr Meizoso]...? Meizoso? All? None?
...more information in our websites and by contacting us

High court opens up new grounds for other appeals against extradition by fast track European Arrest Warrant:
...Unless a case is of major importance, the lower courts normally refuse permission to appeal to the supreme court. In civil cases, that's not a major setback: the appellant can ask the supreme court itself for permission to appeal and this will be granted if it's a case that the court wants to hear.
But criminal cases are different. Section 32 of the Extradition Act 2003 makes it clear that leave to appeal must not be granted unless "the high court has certified that there is a point of law of general public importance involved in the decision". Unless Emmerson and Summers can persuade the two judges that a general point exists, they may find by the end of this month that they have exhausted all their avenues of appeal. Then, Assange's only hope of staying in the UK would be to persuade the European Court of Human Rights to take on his case and ask the British government to defer extradition.
Although the court dismissed all the arguments put by Assange's lawyers, they may take some comfort from a rather interesting passage in paragraph 17 of the judgment. This offers a new exception to the general principle of mutual recognition underpinning the European arrest warrant - that each European country respects the decisions of each other's courts without asking too many questions.
Thomas and Ouseley said that public confidence in the European arrest warrant would not be advanced unless the courts of the country that's being asked to hand over an accused person "scrutinise requests for surrender under the European arrest warrant with the intensity required by the circumstances of each case".
Failure to do so could risk undermining public confidence in the EU's "common area for justice," the judges stressed.
...more in Joshua Rozenberg's article in The Guardian

British expats in Spain see their dreams crumble... by real estate corruption and a judicial system atomized in 17 autonomies which does not deliver justice

Over the past decade, Britons have flocked to Spain, following their dream of owning a place in the sun. But for some, the dream is crumbling.
Thousands of new homes in Andalucia have been declared illegal, because planning permission was granted at a local level, but not a regional one.
Many are now threatened with demolition.
watch Jon Cuthill report in the BBC.

Transcript of the video document:
Back in the South, visiting their family, Christine and John Ball are where they desperately want to be.

“Yeah, I was born in Worthing.”
“We’ve lived here practically all of our lives, haven’t we?”
“We were married here, brought up two sons here and then decided we’d retire in Spain.”

They sold up everything and headed overseas. But their Andalucían dreams turned into a nightmare when their new home was declared illegal and with the threat of demolition, they’re stranded.

“It’s like West Sussex County Council going into Worthing Town Council offices and say “that building or estate you have built there is illegal.”

Hundreds of families from the South are in a similar position. They are now fighting for compensation and the right to be allowed to live in their homes they’d originally been told were legal.

“We built the house then they tell us we’re wrong, they’re not wrong, we’re wrong”.
“I mean it’s all our lives money”.
“People back in the UK, they don’t realise the full scale of the problems. It is horrendous”. “Even if we can find a solution, the length of time that it can take, especially those with court cases because the Spanish judicial system is very very slow, many people may well not see a solution in their lifetime here.”
“We shouldn’t be under this level of stress at our stage of life, through no fault of our own.”
“People at our age start getting illnesses and when you’re under all this stress, it doesn’t help.”

But despite some people’s dreams being left in ruins, there are still no concrete promises to legalise their homes in Spain.
“The central government has no competence on this because the competences are in the powers on these issues have been devolved [Spain is atomized in 17 autonomies, 17 judiciary systems and so on]but the government is putting pressure on regional governments and on local authorities to have a look at those problems, to try to see how we can help.”

But for now, that’s little consolation for the families like the Balls, living with the constant fear their home will be demolished.

Gerard Batten MEP on the loss of Fairness and Justice in the UK caused by the European Arrest Warrant

France refused to execute EAW and extradite to Spain a member of the terrorist organization ETA

A court in South West France rejected on Wednesday (August 17) a request by Spain to hand over a high-level French ex-member of the Basque separatist movement ETA.
David Derguy, a former senior member of ETA, is accused by Spanish authorities of handling explosives, plotting bomb attacks and attempted assassination. Police were present in the court as Basque separatist supporters attended the hearing to protest against the possible hand-over. The Spanish request comes under a new European Arrest Warrant, as Spanish authorities say they have found Derguy's finger prints on a letter bomb which was defused by Basque police in 1994. Daniel Derguy was arrested earlier this month but liberated on bail. He has already spent twelve years in prison in France for previous convictions and spent four years underground before being arrested in 1996. He has admitted being a member of ETA and says that while he does not take pride for his previous acts, he does not regret them and sees being an ETA militant as being part of his Basque duty. "I admit I was a member of ETA, I never denied it, and I did a lot of time in prison for it. I often say it, I don't claim any glory or pride but have no regrets about my past either. I just feel I did my duty as a Basque citizen, that's for sure," Derguy said after the court decision.
Derguy has said the Spanish request is a conspiracy, his lawyer, Yolanda Molina, said said it was a politically motivated and legally ill-founded. "The verdict is judicially fair and politically correct. What has been scandalous and not legally acceptable is the hand-over petition for Daniel Derguy to the Spanish authorities, it has been a political decision, only political, without any judicial basis."
Derguy is believed to have been captured by the ETA leader Henri Parot and became the spokesman for ETA prisoners' group in France. ETA, which has killed more than 850 people in half a century of struggle for an independent Basque state in northern Spain and south-western France, has been weakened by a string of arrests and discoveries of arms caches in Spain, France and Portugal.
The separatists declared a permanent cease-fire on January 10, which was rejected by the Spanish government as insufficient because it did not come with full disarmament.

Assange's barrister, Ben Emmerson, told two judges the European arrest warrant on which he was being held was flawed because it failed to provide "a fair, accurate and proper" description of his alleged sexual misconduct in Sweden.

WikiLeaks founder will begin new legal challenge against attempts to send him to Sweden to face sexual assault allegations

...Assange has appointed a new legal team for Tuesday's hearing. His previous representative, media lawyer Mark Stephens, has been replaced by Gareth Peirce, who has represented the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six and Moazzam Begg, a British Muslim who was held at Guantánamo. Ben Emmerson QC, who specialises in European human rights law, will be Assange's barrister, replacing Geoffrey Robertson QC, who acted for him in January.
The changes are thought to be part of a more conciliatory approach by Assange. Peirce's office would not comment on their strategy on Monday, but she has been previously quoted indicating the need for sensitivity and respect in the case.
"Each of the human beings involved deserves respect and consideration," she reportedly wrote to former US senator Tom Hayden for an article in the Nation, a US magazine. "It is hoped that whatever steps as are required to be taken in the future will be taken thoughtfully, with sensitivity and with such respect."
Assange recently filmed an online fundraising advert in which he appeared to take credit for inspiring the uprising in Egypt. The commercial spoofs the MasterCard ads, saying: "Fighting legal cases across five countries: $1m" and "added cost due to house arrest: £500,000" before concluding with Assange watching footage on his laptop of Egyptian protesters streaming towards Tahrir Square with the voiceover: "Watching the world change as a result of your work: priceless. There are some people that don't like change. For everyone else there is WikiLeaks."

WikiLeaks issued a statement in June marking Assange's six months under house arrest at Ellingham Hall in Norfolk, the 10-bedroom country home of Vaughan Smith, founder of the Frontline club in London. Assange celebrated his 40th birthday there on Sunday with about 100 guests.
WikiLeaks said Assange had not been charged with a crime in any country and complained his conditions were "excessive and dehumanising".
The case will be heard by Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Ouseley in court four of the Royal Courts of Justice and will begin at 10.30am. It is scheduled to last for two days. If Assange loses the case he could yet appeal to the supreme court.
...more in The Guardian - El Pais - France 24 - NewStatesman - The Independent - ABC - Julian Assange extradition appeal hearing – live coverage - MSNBC - Publico - ABC News - The Telegraph - BBC - Al Jazeera - France 24

Read also:The European Arrest Warrant and the modern Anti-Dreyfusards: It could happen to absolutely anyone: that’s the scary thing. When you read about Britons unfairly detained in foreign prisons, you rarely imagine yourself in their place; there’s usually a bit of you thinking, “I wouldn’t have joined a protest march in a tinpot dictatorship” or “I wouldn’t have gone for a drink with a drug smuggler” or “I wouldn’t have been in North Korea in the first place” or “I wouldn’t have hacked into the Pentagon computer system”. You would have no such consolation in the case of Andrew Symeou, a young man from Enfield who has lost three years of his life because of what looks like a straightforward case of mistaken identity. Andrew is in Greece, still waiting for his trial on manslaughter charges, although the only evidence against him rests on suspiciously worded witness statements which have since been retracted or contradicted. ...read the excellent article by Daniel Hannan in The Telegraph

European law's unfair instrument and the ever growing deficit of democracy in the EU
A parliamentary report has concluded that the European arrest warrant is in dire need of reform – about time too

At last! Official recognition that our international extradition arrangements are inadequate, sometimes carelessly applied and urgently need to be reformed. The conclusion of the report today by the all-party joint committee on human rights (JCHR), that both the European arrest warrant (EAW) and the current US-UK extradition treaty are flawed, is extremely welcome.
The EAW was first introduced at the beginning of 2004 as a way of expediting the extradition across European borders of wanted criminals and those who had fled countries rather than stand trial for serious offences. That was its intention, anyway, and it is fair to say that, on many occasions, it has been very helpful in the speedy capture of violent and dangerous people who have sought to avoid a country's justice by hiding abroad. The British police, in particular, have found it invaluable in hoisting back some of the wide boys who have been on the run on the Spanish costas.
However, as Fair Trials International (FTI) has been arguing for some years now, the EAW has turned out to be a very blunt instrument. While there can be no argument on behalf of some of those who have had their collar felt in some foreign land, the warrant has been too readily used in cases that were very minor, flimsy or nonexistent. It is time to rework it, so that the warrant is only employed when there is a clear, credible case against an alleged offender and when a speedy trial and proper legal representation is assured. At the moment, that is not the case. Some countries slap in an EAW too readily and the police in the UK, now facing deep cuts, find themselves further stretched by trying to enforce all the warrants with which they are presented, and which require tracking down those being sought – a total of 699 people in 2009/10.
...more in The Guardian

MEPs who supported the EAW recognise now that this EU legislation is unfair. Calls to urgently reform or abolish the European Arrest Warrant known as the infamous Plan Condor of the EU
Watch the BBC Parliamentary channel interview to MEPs
and read the transcript clicking here

MEPs criticise 'disproportionate' use of European arrest warrants.UKIPMEP Gerard Batten asked a more serious question, inquiring whether "the case against Mr Julian Assange demonstrates the possible abuse of the EAW for political purposes"?
-and if can be use for extradition on the request of a mere Plaintiff - like in the malicious case brought by the Majorca mafia against Dr Meizoso

In April, the EU justice commissioner, Viviane Reding, warned that crossborder pursuits of bicycle thieves, piglet rustlers and those accused of trivial offences was damaging the authority of the European arrest warrant (EAW).
This week it was the turn of MEPs to voice their alarm – or appreciation – of the accelerated system of extradition that is meant to speed up the wheels of justice across the EU. Inevitably, questions about Julian Assange's fate resurfaced.
The EU Commission has tried to sugar the pill, promising legislation to ensure that no one facing criminal charges in any member country will be denied access to a lawyer.
"The law would require every person facing extradition under Europe's fast-track extradition regime – the EAW – to be guaranteed access to a lawyer in both countries, to ensure protection of their fundamental rights," a soothing statement from Brussels declared.
...Improved access to lawyers has been welcomed by Jago Russell, chief executive of Fair Trials International. He said: "It is a shocking fact that, even within Europe, people are still being denied private access to a lawyer at crucial points in their case. This law will be an important step in the right direction, towards a Europe where countries can work together to tackle serious crime, safe in the knowledge that basic defence rights will be respected."
There have been calls for the introduction of a threshold below which extradition would not be permitted for minor allegations. Poland, in particular, has become notorious among EU states for the large quantity of its warrants.
EAWs have been sought for such offences as bicycle theft, possession of 0.45 grams of cannabis, removing car tyres and stealing piglets. More than 2,400 requests were received by the UK from Poland last year.
The EAWwas introduced in January 2004 to help speed extraditions between EU states. Among those resisting removal from the UK is Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, who is facing allegations of rape and sexual assault in Sweden.

How to fix the [unfair] European arrest warrant system
As the Commission now acknowledges, the warrant is only for major crimes and is being misused

How is the EU going to stop the European arrest warrant, its fast-track extradition system, from being misused to prosecute bike thefts? At Fair Trials International we have been campaigning for years for a fairer European arrest warrant system, with a proportionality test to weed out trivial cases, as well as basic fair trial safeguards for people facing extradition.
In a report out on Monday, the European commission acknowledges that the arrest warrant is being misused for low-level crimes. It urges European member states to sort out the problem themselves, by only using the warrant for what it was intended to do – prosecute or punish "major crimes".
However, the problem is that the law applying the arrest warrant does not say it can only be used for major crime and it contains no "proportionality test". That is why countries such as Poland, Lithuania and the Czech Republic, with no prosecutorial discretion, must under their own law pursue every wanted person, no matter how minor the alleged crime.
Take, for example, the case of a retired schoolteacher and grandfather facing extradition to Poland for going over his overdraft limit more than 10 years ago. The entire debt was repaid to the bank but he is still being sought to face trial for "theft", although he has suffered three strokes and is in fragile health.
Extradition has an enormous impact on individuals and their families, yet this "no questions asked" system leaves judges no real discretion to refuse warrants – even when there are serious human rights concerns about sending someone off to the other side of Europe to be prosecuted or imprisoned.
...The European arrest warrant is seen as an important symbol of mutual trust between EU countries, a flagship instrument forged in the wake of 9/11 in a spirit of stronger judicial co-operation across EU borders. In a union of 27 countries, all with distinct legal and penal cultures, it is not easy to build the trust necessary for this degree of mutual co-operation.
...Time will tell whether this is enough to stop the excessive use of this tick-box system by some countries (most notably Poland, which in 2009 issued 4,844 warrants compared to the UK's 220). Although they are welcome and necessary, new EU laws guaranteeing basic defence rights such as access to a lawyer and an interpreter will not cure the flaws in the arrest warrant system nor eradicate injustice from its operation.
Time is running out for EU countries to put their own houses in order. Urgent steps are needed to reform the European arrest warrant, to make sure it fights serious cross-border crime effectively without compromising fundamental rights in the process. Legislative change may be the only answer.
...read the article by Catherine Heard of FAIR TRIALS INTERNATIONAL in The GuardianRead also:Trivial cases undermining European arrest warrants, warns Brussels

"The first requirement of civilization ... is that of justice."Sigmund Freud

“Felix left a man here in jail, and when I went to Jerusalem, the chief priests and the Jewish leaders came and asked me to find him [saint Paul] guilty. I told them that it isn't the Roman custom to hand a man over to people who are bringing charges against him. He must first have the chance to meet them face to face and to defend himself against their charges.”Acts 25, 15-16 (The Bible)

”Sin justicia, ¿qué son los reinos sino una gran banda de ladrones?”
"Without Justice, what is any kingdom but a powerful gang of thieves?"Saint Augustine

“The injustice done to one man is a threat to the entire society”Montesquieu

I want to tell you all about the latest development concerning the European Arrest Warrant.

Many people have been extradited where there is no real evidence against them.

Indeed the courts are powerless to consider any evidence and cannot prevent unjust extradition.

And now there is a new refinement.

My constituent Dr Miguel-Angel Meizoso faces extradition to Spain, not for a crime he is accused of committing, but rather to face investigation for a crime that he allegedly might decide to commit in the future.

Dr Meizoso, who has lived in London for 20 years, now stands to have his life torn apart on the whim of an investigative magistrate investigating a crime that hasn't happened.

If anyone doubts this, I will gladly supply them with a briefing on the case.

When is this Parliament going to face-up to and debate the injustices being done in the name of the European Arrest Warrant?

Because de European Arrest Warrant does not allow evidence to be considered, the judge approves Assange extradition of WikiLeaks founder to Sweden, where he faces sex crime allegations.

Julian Assange will today learn if he is to be extradited to Sweden to face rape and sexual assault allegations. The WikiLeaks founder's legal team has said it is already preparing an appeal in anticipation of the judge's decision going against him.
Mr Assange will learn his fate shortly after 10am today at Belmarsh Magistrates' Court when Chief Magistrate Howard Riddle delivers his judgment. Mark Stephens, Mr Assange's solicitor, said last night that his team was already preparing for the worst. "Both sides, the prosecution and the defence, have told the judge that they are going to appeal if they lose, so we are already working on that principle," he said.
Mr Stephens's comments came after a barrister with specialist knowledge of extradition law said it was "very likely" that the senior district judge will order Mr Assange's extradition. Julian Knowles, a barrister from Matrix, the same chambers as Clare Montgomery, who is prosecuting on behalf of the Swedish authorities in the Assange hearing, told BBC Radio 4's Law in Action: "From what I have read and heard about the Assange extradition hearing, it is very likely that the Swedish prosecutor will prevail and extradition will be ordered."
...more in The Guardian - Al Jazeera - The Independent - Publico - The Telegraph

Legal expert slams Assange case.
Former Swedish prosecutor says there were serious irregularities in case built against the WikiLeaks founder.

A former chief prosecutor in Sweden has criticised his country's handling of the case against Julian Assange, founder of whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.
Sven-Erik Alhem, appearing at the second day of a hearing in London to decide whether Assange should be extradited to Sweden, said it was "quite peculiar" that investigators in his country did not obtain Assange's version of events before issuing an arrest warrant.
The 39-year-old Australian was arrested in London last December, for questioning over allegations of sexual misconduct against two women.
But Alhelm, a witness for the defence, said that Marianne Ny, the Swedish prosecutor who issued the warrant, "should have made sure Assange was able to give his version of events in detail".
Clare Montgomery, the British lawyer representing Sweden, said that Ny spent a week trying to arrange an interview with Assange.
In a document read by Montgomery, Ny said that "it must have been crystal clear to Julian Assange ... that we were extremely anxious to interview him".
She said an interview could not be set up and at one point Assange's Swedish lawyer was unable to contact him for several days, and given this he was considered "an obvious flight risk".
However Alhem said investigators should have examined other options, including an interview by video link once Assange had left the country in late September, before issuing a European Arrest Warrant.
...Earli a Swedish lawyer representing Assange claimed the two alleged victims may have a "hidden agenda".
"I can see from the text messages, in which the complainants speak of 'revenge', obtaining money and speaking about Assange in the press, that they may have a hidden agenda, which casts serious doubt on their accusations," Bjorn Hurtig said in a statement before Tuesday's hearing.
Hurtig, who is due to give evidence at the high security Belmarsh Magistrate's court , added that the case against Assange was one of the "weakest" he had ever seen.
On Monday, Geoffrey Roberston, Assange's defence lawyer, told the court that his client would not get a fair trial in Sweden because of his notoriety and because Swedish rape cases are often held in secret.
But Clare Montgomery, the lawyer representing Sweden, said Swedish trials are based on the principle that everyone deserves a fair and public hearing.
Three of his most high-profile supporters also said they feared Assange would be extradited to the United States once in Sweden, and said he could face incarceration "or worse".
"If he goes back to Sweden then of course the American will get him to the USA and like Bradley Manning, who began this work, he could easily be put in solitary confinement and receive an unfair trial," Tony Benn, a former Labour minister, told a rally in the British capital on Monday.

How to reach to Woolich Crown Court in Belmarsh: In Woolich Arsenal DLR & Overground train Station take bus 380 to final stop (15 minutes drive)

Wikileaks' Julian Assange 'would be denied justice'

There is a risk of "flagrant denial of justice" if Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is tried for rape in Sweden, his lawyer has told a UK court.
Geoffrey Robertson QC fears his client could face the death penalty if then extradited to the US on separate charges relating to Wikileaks.
Mr Assange, 39, denies claims of sexual assault against two women.
Prosecutors say any threat of unfair treatment would see the European Court of Human Rights intervene.
At the extradition hearing in London, the prosecutor in Sweden attempting to extradite Mr Assange has been accused of having a "biased view" against men.
His lawyers earlier said he was "willing and able" to co-operate with Swedish authorities, so no arrest warrant was needed.
They said the European Arrest Warrant under which he had been detained was invalid because he had not yet been charged.
Mr Robertson told Belmarsh Magistrates' Court there was a risk his client could be extradited to the US, or even Guantanamo Bay, and could face the death penalty as a result.
He said Swedish rape trials were regularly "tried in secret behind closed doors in a flagrant denial of justice".

In a document released by Mr Assange's defence team, they argued that:
* Swedish prosecutor Marianne Nye is "not eligible" or an appropriate "judicial authority" to issue a European Arrest Warrant
* The Swedes are guilty of an "abuse of process" as they have not demonstrated any intention to charge or prosecute Mr Assange
* The application for a warrant is "disproportionate" as he is willing to co-operate and be interviewed by phone, e-mail or videolink
* The arrest warrant paperwork is not valid as it does not "unequivocally" state that he is wanted for prosecution
* The offences Mr Assange faces - unlawful coercion and sexual molestation - are not criminal acts under British law; and
* Extraditing Mr Assange to Sweden would be a "real risk of a flagrant denial of justice" and a "blatant breach" of British constitutional principles.
...more in BBC - The Guardian - The Independent - El Mundo - Público - Al Jazeera - France 24 - Le Monde - Die Spiegel - La Repubblica Read also:The legal argument against the EAW extradition of Julian Assange clicking here.

Victims of EU extradition laws to give evidence in UK Parliament

Four clients of Fair Trials International who have been affected by the European Arrest Warrant (the EU’s fast-track extradition system) will appear tomorrow before Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights to explain its impact on their lives. The Committee has invited this panel, and the human rights charity Fair Trials International, to give evidence on the operation of the Arrest Warrant and proposals for reform.
Catherine Heard, Head of Policy at Fair Trials International said:
“We are delighted to have the opportunity to share with the Committee our concerns about the Arrest Warrant. Our clients have compelling stories to tell about how the arrest warrant has infringed their fundamental human rights and why we need to work with our EU partners to reform this “no questions asked” extradition system. Vital safeguards are needed to ensure the Arrest Warrant delivers, rather than undermines, justice in Europe.”
Fair Trials International recognises that judicial and police cooperation is essential in order to tackle serious cross-border crime, but this should not be done at the expense of basic human rights. For too long, the European Arrest Warrant has placed the speedy surrender of people to other European countries above the fundamental rights of the individual. The Government’s extradition review and the Joint Committee’s inquiry provide an important opportunity, not only to recommend the changes needed to improve the system, but also to learn the lessons of the European Arrest Warrant so they are not repeated in the context of future EU proposals.

Justice is not served by the European Arrest Warrant
How misguided can the authorities be when it comes to the wide-embracing legal instrument, the European Arrest Warrant (report, August 29)? Conceived under the last government as a counter-terrorist measure, it has made ordinary British citizens insecure and unsafe, by placing British justice at the mercy of the lowest common denominator within a large group of judicial systems, the standards of which ministers have no possible way of guaranteeing.
...more in The Telegraph

Documents seen by BBC News suggest that a man from Staffordshire, convicted of murder in Italy, was not in the country at the time.
Edmond Arapi, who lives in Leek with his wife and three young children, was given a 16-year jail term in his absence.
His lawyers claim he is the victim of mistaken identity and are urging the Italian authorities to withdraw their request to extradite him.
Legal campaigners say the case highlights flaws in the fast-track European Arrest Warrant scheme.
Mr Arapi, an Albanian chef legally resident in the UK and married to a British woman, was convicted of stabbing to death Castillo Marcello in Genoa, in northern Italy, in October 2004.
According to prosecutors, a distant relative and workmate of Mr Arapi implicated him in the murder.
The Italians allege Mr Arapi fled to Albania and from there phoned the relative, confessing to the crime.
In his absence and, says Mr Arapi, without his knowledge, he was tried, convicted and given a 19-year prison term - reduced to 16 years after an appeal which he also apparently did not know about.
...more in the BBC

Fair Trials International (www.fairtrials.net) and Liberty (www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/index.php) have documented an ever growing number of abuses committed by the antidemocratic doctrine applied to the EAW: that strong relations among EU members states supersedes the protection of the fundamental rights of citizens, suppressing thus the most important obligation of any Democratic State.

Fairness and justice and the fundamental right to be presumed innocent have been since 2003, time and time again, sacrificed to the EU states collaboration with the USA in the holy crusade against “terrorist” and “organised crime”. Like in the case of the invasion of Iraq or of Gaza, numberless innocent civilians are sacrificed to an ever growing corruption, deals behind the scenes, making a farce of democracy by the duplicity of our politicians and the hand-ties situation of the British judges who had to bow to any “judicial authority” of another EU state, even when a British judge is aware that an EAW is abusive.

EU countries with judicial systems shaped by dictatorships have been the main abusers of the EAW, the East EU countries as well as Spain, Portugal and Greece, where nepotism and corruption continues to reign. Now we see Sweden, which has cooperated in the “Renditions flights of the CIA”, also abusing the EAW to silence WikiLeaks and his founder Julian Assange, and the UK cooperating in sending to prison a mere defendant who had to be presumed innocent, not to mention of such a ludicrous allegations as “consensual sex turned rape”. Is this the XXI century? What was left of Fair Britain?

Instead of being the European Union the opportunity to bring Justice and Democracy to most EU countries that have been under dictatorships or suffered institutional corruption and nepotism, it has been the other way round: the EAW corporatist doctrine is the tool to knock down Fairness where it was before, by any “judicial authority” of another country acting unlawfully. Why us, the people, would keep paying the high bills of bureaucrats who work against us all, innocent citizens, who legislate against Justice and against Democracy? How could we support Human Rights in China, Russia, Iran, North Korea or Burma when our institutions give bad example? Humankind has only one home, what we let happen in a corner of Earth will affect us all. An injustice done to a human being casts an immense shadow on our humanity, as Sophocles and Euripides had shown.

It is time for journalists who want to dignify their profession to inform the European citizens of this new Plan Condor that is the actual EAW legislation.

Like Mr Julian Assange and many others, I am a victim of an abusive EAW issued on a private complaint instigated by Majorca Mafia wanting to grab the land of a national heritage site protected by the public interest Foundation I chair. I can provide detail information on my landmark case, which is opening the gates to extradition of innocent defendants on any single private complaint, with a corollary of human and civil rights violations that can make your life a hell like in a new “Guantanamo camp”.

Please for the sake your own human rights, for the sake of Fairness and Democracy, do care to learn about the unfairness of the EAW, and help to take to account the political leader who failed us all, take action before it is too late for any one you care for.

Assange's extradition is only the tip of the iceberg.
Flawed European arrest warrant system means thousands face unjust extradition each year.
by Jago Russell, chief executive of Fair Trials International

No doubt, in the coming days, many more column inches will be dedicated to Julian Assange's battle against extradition to Sweden. His case, however, is the tip of the iceberg. In 2009 more than 4,000 people were extradited under Europe's fast-track extradition system, 700 from the UK alone.
This kind of EU co-operation may help in the fight against crime but the benefits of a streamlined system should be weighed against the heavy toll taken upon an individual when surrendered to another state.
A few days ago, four of Fair Trials International's clients spoke in parliament about their personal extradition ordeals. These examples clearly demonstrate that the European arrest warrant is not operating "efficiently and in the interests of justice".
Frank Symeou explained how his 21-year-old son, Andrew, spent a year in horrendous prison conditions in Greece. Eighteen months after he was extradited he is still waiting for the trial to start.
Edmond Arapi described his 12-month battle against extradition to Italy where, with no notice whatsoever, he had been sentenced to 16 years for murder. Ultimately, Italian judges were persuaded that Arapi could not possibly have committed the crime and the wrong man had been convicted. He had spent weeks in custody, torn from his young family.
Similar examples of injustice are happening all over Europe. In the Netherlands, for example, a political storm is brewing over the case of Cor Disselkoen, a 65-year-old man who is due to be extradited to Poland (a country that issues about one-third of European arrest warrants).
Disselkoen suffers from a severe heart condition and is the primary carer for his terminally ill son. He faces charges for an alleged fraud dating back to the mid-1990s, allegations he strenuously denies. Given the notoriously bad conditions in Polish prisons there is a fear that, if extradited, he would not survive the ordeal.
At the heart of the problem with the European arrest warrant is the inability or unwillingness of Europe's judges to prevent injustice. The standard retort to arguments against extradition is that we must co-operate with our European neighbours, we must trust them to do the right thing. We do, of course, need an effective system of extradition in Europe: we cannot allow people to evade justice by crossing Europe's open borders. Given the grave human consequences of extradition, the current blind faith approach to justice is not acceptable.
On occasion, judicial frustration at this no-questions-asked system overflows. Last year, before concluding that he could not stop Garry Mann's extradition to Portugal, Lord Justice Moses spoke of the court's "inability … to rectify what appears to be a serious injustice to Mr Mann".
"I cannot believe anybody wants this man to go and do two years in an Albufeira jail. It is just an embarrassment for everybody, this whole case, and it ought to disappear," he said. Garry is in Portugal serving a two-year sentence.
The scales finally seem to be falling from the eyes of those responsible for the warrant. A review is under way in the UK to examine its operation and the European justice commissioner, Viviane Reding, has recently acknowledged "there is considerable room for improvement in the operation of the arrest warrant system".
The challenge is to fix the system by building in much-needed safeguards against misuse and injustice. Fair Trials International has given the UK's extradition review panel suggestions on how this could be achieved. Until it is, many more people will suffer an unjustified extradition ordeal and public confidence in the European arrest warrant will continue to ebb away.
...more in The Guardian Read also:How the extradition process works.'The Mask and the Judge' by Lord Justice Moses

Sweden's attempt to extradite Julian Assange has placed a spotlight on the procedure for extradition between European countries – the European arrest warrant.
The little-known legal instrument has been controversial since it was introduced in 2003 under the Labour government and then home secretary, David Blunkett.
It was described as a mechanism for fast-tracking extraditions across Europe for terrorism and serious crime, initially agreed as part of moves to tighten security for cross-border offences just days after the 11 September terrorist attacks.
The EAW speeds up extradition within Europe by providing a uniform set of procedures once a country receives a warrant from another on the continent. The regime replaces the bilateral arrangements that had existed between countries. It also removes the discretion for the secretary of state, who could previously order or refuse extradition.
...However, judges have relatively limited discretion to block extradition requests from other European countries. Similar constraints exist in respect of extraditions outside the EU, in particular to the US, where a separate treaty entered into in 2003 provides for people in the UK to be extradited there upon the US government's request.

Advocates argue that the long-running case of Gary McKinnon shows that the home secretary should have discretion to block extraditions to the US in exceptional circumstances, such as where a person facing extradition would face an unfair prison sentence, or there is a risk of suicide. The government has so far said it does not have a discretion to block extraditions on this basis.
...Assange's legal team have claimed the threat of a further extradition from Sweden to the US, should the EAW be granted, is an additional reason to refuse his extradition.
...Speaking on the final day of his extradition hearing, Geoffrey Robertson QC, told Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in south east London that Sweden's prime minister had made an attack on Assange and his defence counsel.
He said: "He has effectively been denounced as an enemy of the people."
Prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's remarks were said to include claims that Assange and his lawyers had been "condescending and damaging to Sweden" and to have implied that they thought women's rights were worthless.
Mr Robertson said: "In a small country...it has created a toxic atmosphere, media are reporting it and it is a basis for comment.
"Mr Assange is public enemy number one as a result of the prime minister's statement.
"People will believe...that Mr Assange has been damaging Sweden."
He described it as an "intolerant development" in the case and accused the head of state of showing "complete contempt for the presumption of innocence".

2010

The EAW is a product of the "fight against terrorism" promote by the junta Bush Jr., Blair and Aznar. The doctrine of application is that the collaboration between members states supersedes their democratic duty of protecting the fundamental rights of their citizens. It is a similar fascist doctrine to that of president Truman in his "fight against communist terrorism" which has produced the infamous Plan Condor of dictator Pinochet and the Hispano American dictatorship and more recently the "rendition flights of the CIA" and the EAW.

British citizens and residents in the UK can be extradited to other European Union countries with no safeguards against injustice, something amply illustrated by the case of Andrew Symeou a nineteen-year-old London man whose fundamental rights have been violated by institutional corruption in Greece.

Stephen Hoffman: The Sinister World of the European Arrest Warrant
[Stephen Hoffman is Parliamentary Intern at The Freedom Association.]
During the previous Labour Government’s period in power, we had the twin horrors of ancient British liberties being torn up in the name of counter-terrorism and further transfers of power to the EU. This both hit UK taxpayers in the pocket and undermined national sovereignty. These horrors combined to create one of the most sinister pieces of legislation. Its name is the European Arrest Warrant (EAW).
...One case, which demonstrates the human costs of the European Arrest Warrant, is that of Andrew Symeou, who was extradited to Greece on charges of murder. This was despite the fact that there was little evidence to back the charges and important evidence on a CCTV camera, clearing Andrew, mysteriously went missing. There is also evidence that torture was used to extract confessions from informants. This was just the start of a terrible journey for him. He has been held for over a year awaiting trial. Most of this time has been spent in Korydallos prison, which is notorious for human rights abuse.
The Home Office is currently reviewing all extradition legislation. As part of this review, The Freedom Association has submitted a report detailing the ways in which the EAW infringes on the rights and freedoms of British citizens. Our submission highlights that the EAW undermines habeas corpus, a fundamental element of British justice. We would like to see the review recommend wide-ranging reforms which address the issues we have highlighted in our submission. If the review does not do this, the Coalition Government’s commitment to civil liberties will be seen to be entirely hollow.
...read the full article clicking here European arrest warrants - Extraditions Process Abuses Suspects

In the last decade, the European Union has changed the face of criminal justice in Europe. Each year thousands of people are transferred under Europe’s new fast-track extradition system (the “European Arrest Warrant”) to face trials or serve prison sentences in a foreign country. Police and courts from different countries now hold and exchange ever greater amounts of evidence and criminal records data.
This kind of EU cooperation can help in the fight against crime, making it easier to bring the guilty to justice. But cooperation must not be at the expense of fundamental justice and fairness. At Fair Trials International we believe that respect for the rule of law should be at the heart of European cooperation. Europe should work together to improve basic fair trial rights - not undermine them.
Sadly, our own casework repeatedly demonstrates the human cost of existing cooperation measures. Under the European Arrest Warrant, for example, people from all across Europe are being sent to other EU member states for the most minor offences, or to serve prison sentences imposed after unfair trials. As about half of our cases concern Europe, we also have compelling evidence of the need to improve fair trial rights across the Union. It is hugely disappointing that, to date, the UK and a minority of other states have vetoed efforts to improve standards of justice, choosing instead to trust other European legal systems to deliver justice – a trust that is sometimes misguided.
Drawing on the real-life examples of injustice that we encounter at Fair Trials International, we will campaign for Justice in Europe. To start with, we will fight for the European Arrest Warrant to be improved so it delivers rather than undermines justice (See below). Under the “Justice in Europe” umbrella, we will then focus on a number of other areas where mutual cooperation without proper safeguards will continue to cause injustice. We will scrutinise other upcoming EU cooperation measures, to ensure they respect basic rights. Where they do not, we will campaign for reform. Alongside this, we will support European efforts to protect basic defence rights, the necessary building blocks of the mutual trust that underlies European cooperation.

The leader of the corrupt catalanist Majorca Unionist party, Mrs Munar...and the false widow Miss Kodama...use a judicial institution of Franco's dictatorship to impulse a criminal plot against a foundation of the Friends of Borges, as they want to grab the national heritage land to make money with an illegal real estate development

TV interview of 25th March 2010 to Spanish Justice Secretary, explaining the dire need of democratic reform to the administration of Justice and the abolition of the antidemocratic Investigative Magistrates

TV interview of 7th April 2010 to Spanish Justice Secretary, explaining the dire need of democratic reform to the administration of Justice and the abolition of the antidemocratic Investigative Magistrates

Fair Trials International is a unique human rights charity. We campaign for fundamental rights for people facing the ordeal of criminal charges in a country other than their own. In addition to providing legal assistance and advocacy to individuals in need, we fight the underlying causes of injustice in cross-border cases through our policy interventions, research and training.

Misuse of the European Arrest Warrant

The Guardian, Thursday 16 December 2010
Julian Assange may ultimately succeed in his bail application, but the threat of extradition to Sweden will still hang over him (The Julian Assange case: a mockery of extradition?, 14 December). The public interest in Assange's case is understandable, but his case illustrates a wider, less publicised problem. Last year alone, Europe's fast-track extradition system was used to extradite nearly 700 people from the UK. Our work at Fair Trials International leaves us in no doubt that this system, designed to deliver justice, is in fact causing many serious cases of injustice.
A central concern in the Assange case is that Sweden seems not even to have laid charges. The European arrest warrant should, by law, be used only to prosecute or to enforce a sentence. Serious though the allegations may be, there is no basis to extradite Mr Assange, unless for the purposes of conducting a criminal prosecution. We have seen many cases of overseas prosecutors reaching for the quick-fire, tick-box EAW, rather than using other legitimate means of investigating alleged crimes. Michael Turner and Andrew Symeou are just two of those we have helped, and who experienced horrendous periods in detention after being surrendered, before even being questioned by police.
In such cases as these, less drastic tools should be used. Sweden should ask the UK to assist with its investigations, starting by questioning Assange. The EAW, used properly, is a key weapon in the fight against serious cross-border crime. It should not, however, be the measure of first resort.
Catherine Heard
Head of policy, Fair Trials InternationalRead also:The European arrest warrant is being used to have thousands of people flown out to face charges that wouldn't stick in the UKExtradition agreement under review as Theresa May launches inquiryEuropean arrest warrant in spotlightExtradition treaty review will take a year:
The review, conducted by a panel of experts selected by the Home Office, will examine whether judges should be given powers to bar extradition and deal with some cases in British courts. Existing legislation allows the US and European Union countries to have British citizens arrested and sent for trial abroad without presenting the level of evidence that would be needed for a prosecution in the UK.
The panel will examine whether the Extradition Act and European Arrest Warrant are being used to unfairly pursue Britons. It follows the case of Gary McKinnon, a Scot who faces decades in a US jail for computer hacking crimes allegedly committed at his north London home. There has also been alarm at the use of European warrants to send people to countries with legal systems less robust than the UK's, and where they can face years locked up on remand.
Last night, the former home secretary David Blunkett, who signed the Extradition Act and has admitted he may have "given too much away" to the Americans, said that sensible discussions with Britain's extradition partners could resolve "any irritants quite speedily".
But he said Ms May's announcement of the scope of the review appeared "to kick these issues into the long grass" because the panel will not report until the end of next summer.
Shami Chakrabarti, of the civil rights group Liberty, also raised concerns about the time the review will take, saying: "A number of hard cases could be more urgently addressed by activating a 'forum' provision that has sat dormant on the statute book for four years."
By activating these provisions now, "judges would have the discretion to protect people who should most obviously be dealt with at home from being shunted off to Europe, the US or anywhere else", she added.